CorraTech, an open source software vendor, has announced the launch of a new open source project, OpenSuite, designed "to overcome open source application integration challenges" for CRM and other applications, company officials say.

The product is designed to allow business process and data integration across open source applications and proprietary IT systems by providing a virtual suite of open source enterprise software.

The adoption and use of open source software by enterprises is widespread and continues to increase. For most organizations, integrating multiple open source applications with each other and within existing proprietary IT environments is a challenge. Although independent software vendors and community projects support integration and interoperability efforts with open source applications, most focus on providing the hooks for other applications to connect.

OpenSuite bills itself as "the glue required to make independently developed open source applications act as though they were designed to operate as an integrated suite."

In related news, CorraTech and open source BPMS company Intalio have announced a technology and system integration partnership whereby CorraTech will use Intalio's business process management technology in OpenSuite.

CorraTech officials say this will enable customers to configure business processes across open source and proprietary applications in OpenSuite Core Services.

Ron Bongo, CEO of CorraTech, said "it has become apparent to us that in order for open source applications to deliver enterprise value, they need to operate more like a suite and more freely share business processes across the IT environment."

In addition to CRM, OpenSuite provides packaged integration across such open source applications as enterprise resource planning, content/document management, messaging and project management.

The OpenSuite platform takes a service-oriented approach and supplies server-to-server middleware layer functionality. The platform is distributed with a number of packaged business processes called Business Process Packs, which represent logical flows of user actions. These packs consist of reusable functions combined to create cross-application workflows that allow users to navigate between applications, as well as add new functions and productivity improvements to applications.

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David Sims is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To see more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.